I don't know that the world particularly needs one more guy discussing
who he thinks is in the tournament at this point, but I'm going to run
through this as a way of shaking off the cobwebs as I get ready to run
through the usual home stretch columns (even with Breadcrumbs retired,
I think these are generally worth the effort -- next week, it's the
conference race watch, then the ISR-based field, then a last predictive
column, then the field analysis).

One-Bids

First off, there are fourteen conferences where only the conference
tournament winner will advance. Here they are, with my best wild guess at
who will win:

America East (Stony Brook)

Atlantic Sun (I think Lipscomb is the best eligible team, which is a mess)

Atlantic Ten (North Carolina-Charlotte)

Horizon (Wright State, just for variety)

Ivy (Dartmouth)

Metro Atlantic Athletic (Canisius)

Mid-American (Kent State)

Mid-Eastern Athletic (Bethune-Cookman)

Northeast (Monmouth)

Ohio Valley (Samford)

Patriot (Army)

Southwestern Athletic (Jackson State)

Sun Belt (New Orleans)

WAC (Fresno State)

None of these will host.

One Possible At-Large Bid

There are an astounding eight conferences right now with teams that will
qualify for at-large bids if they need to, plus Dallas Baptist, who I think
will get in, although the severe RPI drop the last couple of weeks has
pushed them down onto the bubble. This obviously has some major
implications for bubble teams (including most of these), who need to be
sweating more than usual right now. Overall, this is a sign that it's been
a good year for the power conferences, which might or might not be related
to the new schedule.

Big East (St. John's)

Big South (Coastal Carolina)

Big Ten (Michigan)

Colonial (North Carolina-Wilmington)

Missouri Valley (Wichita State)

Mountain West (Texas Christian)

Southland (Texas-San Antonio)

Summit (Oral Roberts)

There are a few bubble out teams in these leagues, like Louisville, San
Diego State, or New Mexico, that could still make it in. Coastal might
host, and I think Michigan or Wichita might get to be a token Northern
host, since I'm having trouble making the numbers work without them (the
RPI is Carolina-heavy this year, which throws things off).

Legend

Rem -- Average ISR of remaining opponents
I -- In tournament
O -- Out of tournament
BI -- On the bubble, currently in
BO -- On the bubble, currently out

If conferences got bids instead of teams, this would be more than a five-bid
league, but all of the bottom three here have some serious warts, so I'm not
sure that more than one of them get in. The top three will host.

UCSB may be a bit of a stretch; they really need to stay in the top three
in the conference standings to overcome the RPI, and they've got the
toughest schedule left. Consider this a right now evaluation rather than
a prediction. Fullerton and Irvine host.

Rice will host. ECU might, and I'll count them, but they've got some
issues with geographic density around them, and the RPI is the kind that
tends to look a little empty to a slightly-more-sophisticated committee
like we have now.

Well, they've probably eliminated Washington (who we'll probably be talking
about in a couple of weeks). Somebody has to lose conference games, so,
unfortunately, we're probably looking at six bids as a max here -- I figure
there's a decent chance that one of the current BO teams pulls it in or
WSU's conference record comes up. What the Pac 10 has done to the rest of
the country this year has been truly impressive. The most interesting
question is whether they let both Arizona teams host; everybody gets linked
in as "Western" teams, but there are actually some travel cost issues
involved in getting teams to Tucson. I'll hope they do the right thing; if
they don't, Stanford will host in Arizona's place.

The gap between the ISR's and the RPI's is larger than usual this year
for the SEC; this could be a rocky postseason for the league, depending
on what kind of draw they get. Georgia, USC East, and Florida will host.

The disconnect between the RPI and the ISR doesn't get much more stark
than this. I'll write more later about what the WCC did out of
conference this year, but, for better or worse, they'll probably only get
three bids, none of whom will host.

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